Color
by alwaysflying
Summary: Color is everywhere, is all around us.


**Mimi.**

when I was about ten  
I decided that I liked things sleek  
and smooth  
and shiny.

and my uncle  
had this car  
a limo  
because he invented  
some fast food place  
and got rich.

the thing about my uncle was  
neither of my parents liked him  
because  
they said  
he was a cheat.

but I didn't care  
because he had this shiny car  
and it was always polished  
and perfect.

so my parents hated it  
but I spent all of my free time  
in his car  
staring out the tinted windows  
and telling him how shiny it all was.

**Roger.**

when I was a kid  
I had an older brother  
who was always one-upping me,  
beating me by one point in basketball  
dating the girl I liked  
stealing my hat  
and hiding it  
because he was taller.

he was golden  
and he could do no wrong  
and he had fans  
even in our tiny  
tiny  
tiny  
high school.

then I came along  
an awkward  
nervous  
worried  
freshman  
and he was still golden

so I worked hard  
I started a band  
and had flawless grades  
and tried my hardest to get a girlfriend  
and even with all that  
and even after he graduated  
I was still only silver.

**April.**

outside of looking in the mirror  
at my own eyes,  
the first time I can remember  
seeing the color green  
was in the carpet of my parents' house.  
it was a foresty color  
like treetops  
or seaweed  
or the tiny green houses in monopoly.

the grass outside was green too  
but that was only for the first three years  
when we lived in suburbia.  
after that  
in the city  
it was just the carpet  
and the fading paint on the car.

**Mark.**

once  
when Roger was in withdrawal  
and I was still dating Maureen  
she said that  
I didn't care about her.

she said it was impossible  
for anyone  
(except for Roger)  
or anything  
to faze me  
in any way.  
and she was right.

she said  
that I was like the ocean  
which makes its own waves  
whenever it wants.

and never  
ever  
does the ocean care about  
whatever the fuck is going on  
outside of its own little world.  
and she was right

because no matter how many boats  
glide across the ocean  
and no matter how many fish  
shit in the ocean  
and no matter how many people  
pollute the ocean  
it's still blue  
(or mostly blue)  
and it's still calm  
for as long as it wants to be.

**Joanne.**

I don't know how they did it  
but somehow  
it seems that every group,  
religious  
or racial  
or based on sexual orientation,  
has some sort of symbol.

homosexuality  
is rainbow.

more specifically  
gay is pink  
and lesbian is purple.

the only problem is  
I've always  
always  
always  
always  
always hated purple.

**Collins.**

when my sister was born  
she was tiny  
and loud  
and we were all wondering  
how something so small  
could make so much noise.

we decided that  
it was because  
she was a girl.

she was my parents' fifth child  
and first daughter.

they bought her pink curtains  
and a pink crib  
and pink booties  
and pink cloth diapers  
which they soon learned  
didn't work

at least, on her.  
everything was pink  
until she turned five  
and she said  
she really would have preferred blue.

**Benny.**

in my town as a kid  
things were black and white  
(literally)  
but mostly white.

gray  
was nothing more than  
the school buildings  
the courthouse  
the curtains in windows  
and sneakers  
after being worn  
and worn  
and worn again  
to the point that the laces were limp  
and the soles exhausted.

in the city  
things were different  
because when I got off the train  
the first thing I saw was  
a hot dog vendor  
with a yellow cart  
and he wore a yellow hat.

from there  
I took a yellow taxi  
to my apartment building  
which was gray  
but had yellow curtains.

**Maureen.**

once upon a time  
it was my senior prom  
and I had no one to go with  
because I had expected  
that some guy  
at the last minute  
would come to his senses  
and invite me.

but no one did  
which was depressing  
until my mother  
being the sucker that she was  
pulled her old prom dress from her closet  
and held it out to me.

it was gold  
and she had the shoes to match  
which were a little too big for me  
but I put them on anyway  
and stuffed them with cotton balls.

it was the gold that got me  
because even without a date  
and even without a purse  
or makeup  
or jewelry  
I felt like a princess.

and what's more  
I looked amazing.

**Angel.**

when I was growing up  
there wasn't a lot of room for self-expression.  
we lived in a small trailer  
where there was a wall  
and daddy's bed  
and another wall.  
it was slate gray.  
all of it.

when I left home  
I left to the suburbs first  
because I wanted to see color.  
and I did

the second I stepped outside  
I saw the grass  
and the sky  
and the trees  
and the rainbow.

after that  
I almost didn't want to leave  
for the city  
because I was scared  
that the color would slip away.


End file.
